The other day, I was out driving with my mother, and I noticed a little girl walking along the pavement wearing a Cinderella dress.

“I used to have one like that,” I said.

“But you were never really into it,” my mum replied. “You were never into Disney. Or dolls, or teddies, or most toys really.”

“So what was I into then?” I replied.

“Books,” she said. And that says it all really!

It’s safe to say that literature has been the building blocks of my life. Some of my earliest memories are w...